Swarthmore College Top Questions

Classes are small, personal, professors know you on a first name basis and you know many of them on a first name basis as well. I've heard of an Arabic professor inviting students over to his house for wine and hookah. It can get pretty personal which is cool because you get a lot of attention. My favorite and most unique class was French Cultural and Critical Theory which was listed under French and an interdisciplinary area of study known as Interpretation Theory. Basically, it was a French continental professor giving you a survey on a bunch of prominent continental philosophers (French or otherwise). The continental 'canon' was huge: Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Zizek, Lacan, Freud, Benjamin, Agamben, Baudrillard, Mouffe to list a few. It was an amazing eye-opener and mind-blower into an entirely new area of thought which I hadn't explored before. There seems to be lots of classes that reveal entire fields of knowledge which you had never discovered before. It was great. My least favorite class was some Intro to Phil class. Intro classes are usually more uninteresting because they are more basic and mundane. Class participation is very common which is great because so many ideas are discussed in every class. Swatties have lots of intellectual conversations outside of class which is awesome because you can talk about classes and subjects you've never heard of before. Talking to people outside your major outside of class is one of the most enlightening things you can do. Students aren't competitive. Even though Swat can be intense, people aren't overly concerned about grades and there's no cutthroat competition amongst people. Swat's academic requirements are very minimal and you can get out of em with AP's as well. There is a P.E. requirement which can be silly but there are some interesting P.E. classes like Aikido that you can take. Swarthmore is geared more toward learning for its own sake but it also prepares you for the job market very well and the Career Center can help you out a lot in that regards. But if you want to go on to further study after college, Swarthmore is definitely the place to be. Small classes and personal relations with good professors translates into amazing preparation for grad school and connections to good letters of recommendations.

I expected the transition from high school to college to be far more intense than I experienced during my first two years here. Yes, the school work is much harder and I barely sleep several days of the week. Arabic, in particular, is a constant struggle. But studying the humanities, the field in which I've chosen to concentrate, doesn't seem to have changed since high school. I can still bullshit my way through literary analyses, hold empty discussions on nebulous topics, and get away without reading. I'm fine with it. My point is that for the most part, I stimulate my intellect, the classes don't. My own research and reading almost invariably yields the greatest rewards--at least in the humanities. And God knows I'm terrible at the natural sciences, so I won't even bother describing my experience with them. In general, however, the professors are always ready to elucidate any confusing shit, the academic requirements are reasonable, and the class selection never fails to fascinate.

Students study a lot, sometimes on Saturday nights if need be. Class participation is common; classes are highly interactive with a small number of students. Students are other Engineering programs tend to be overstressed and suicidal; however, the Engineering students at Swarthmore are encouraged to work as a team in all our assignments, which inherently removes competitive urges. The professors are very accessible and spend a lot of time with us. Sometimes, they'll even be around just to help you at 10PM on a Sunday night. The amount of personal research they do is minimal because they are mainly here to help us learn. Sometimes, I'll just be sitting in the Hicks lounge, and a professor will come by and share an article with me. 20 out of my 32 minimum credits are devoted to fulfilling my Engineering credits, which spans across Math, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry & Engineering. But I still feel there is a lot of room to take electives that aren't directly satisfying a requirement. The education at Swarthmore is definitely geared towards learning for its own sake. However, there is Career Services to guide students to getting a job.

Tough. Professors expect alot out of their students. Students work a lot and yes, intellectual discussion does sometimes occur outside of class. Personal attention is a big thing at Swarthmore (student-faculty ratio 8:1) as professors know you and your abilities. My classics professor once wrote an entire page (single-spaced) of comments on a paper I had written. Swarthmore definitely is a place to learn how to think, and I have certainly been challenged in ways that I couldn't have imagined.

I love my professors. Yes they all know who I am and I feel totally comfortable talking with them. My classes are difficult but I feel like I am pushed in a good way, and I feel like I am growing as a person through all the stuff that I do both in the classroom and as work on my own. Yes, I admit it is hard work but I am prouder of myself because of it, and truly believe that i will succeed after college because of the work I am putting in here and now.

Aside from intro classes, classes are so small that professors usually do know everyone's names and class participation is (unfortunately) highly necessary. Students have the sometimes annoying habit of engaging in class conversations even outside of class, on weekends, and when drunk. THAT is how passionate they are. Education at Swarthmore is definitely geared toward learning for its own sake rather than getting a job. Thus, I fear many of us will be jobless after graduation.

My professors tend to know my name, and recognize me after classes are over. Students also tend to hold intellectual discussions long after class has finished.

I enjoy the relationships that you are able to build with your professors because they do end up being a lot more personal, that they would be at larger institutions. I have to say that in general I am pleased with the structure of the academics here at Swarthmore, just not the diversity of the teachers, and the size of the English department in particular because we have a very limited course selection that usually gravitates towards the same material. I wouldn't mind if the limited material was more varied and interesting, but on the whole it just isn't.

Although academics at Swarthmore are much more demanding than at any other institution I have been to, I really enjoy studying here. In High school I had some classes that I was required to take and I would never ever look forward to those classes. However, I have yet to have a class here at Swarthmore that I have not yet not wanted to attend. In engineering, I find myself frequently staying up all night in the engineering building, because I become so immersed in the material, that I want to understand it as well as I can. I do believe that the academics challenge you more than most colleges will, but I do believe that it is for our benefit and I can truly see some of the benefits that will soon come from our efforts.

yes they know my name, favorite class ever was foundations drawing and michelangelo, least favorite are the ones im taking right now, students study all the time, participation is common, sure they have intellectual converstations, not competitive, SWARTHMORE EDUCATION WILL NOT PREPARE ANYBODY FOR A JOB, its for the sake of higher learning, to learn and study things that are completely useless in the professional world and to get into grad school to learn more useless things, you learn things in the professional world through experience but basic skills are still needed for that job which is absent at swarthmore. they dont even have a design or communications class for pete sake